The Gateway Lofts project is moving full steam ahead.

Southern Tier Environments For Living is continuing to work on the project, and Steven Ald, STEL’s director of real estate development, returned to the Planning Commission this week to give an update as to where that project currently stands.

Ald said right now STEL is in the process of finalizing the construction budget number, but is finding problems with a certain funding source requiring a blower door test, which according to the Department of Energy’s website is a tool used to determine how much air is entering or escaping a home.

“There’s a fear we’re not going to pass the blower door test because it’s such an old building and it has so many places for air to leak,” Ald said. “So, if we can’t pass the blower door test we’re going to lose one of our sources of funding, which is not that important; I mean it’s helpful to have it but if we lose the source we’ll just get more money from the main source, which is the New York State Housing Finance Agency.”

Ald said the agency is flexible but prefers for them to have as many funding sources as possible, so they need to know what is happening with the test before they apply to them, and they are now on hold for that until they get that answer. After that they have to wait and see where they fall for the HFA, but Ald said there should be some preferential treatment because it is a supportive housing project. Last time they applied it took over a year, so Ald added his hope is that things will be different this time and they can get the project started this year.

“Once construction starts it’s going to be 16 months of construction, before then we begin round two,” Ald said.

Zoning variance extensions have also been applied for and granted by the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals, which were noted to be related to parking. No changes have been made to the variances, they were just in need of extensions. The planning commission also noted that on their end there is nothing to be done, but a request does need to be submitted to Mark Roetzer, city DPW director. Ald said that has been done, and Jason Kulaszewski, city principal planner, said he was also copied on that request which was received in January.

The process for this project is a long one, and Ald said there is still a ways to go, but hopes it will be underway soon.